Waht is the minmum price for repaiar

Lots of calls for irrigation repair. Most of them are Minor and they seem to expect them for free. What are your minimum for your regular clients. IE just to show up. Let alone do you mark up the materials

$56 just to show up. But if it's the little old lady you've taken care of for years and you can do it in 15 minutes, plus you'll be down the street, then the decision is up to you.

Any new customer, $56 to show up, and that takes care of the first 1/2 hour. I just went to that this year. In the past it was $56 an hour, one hour minimum. But after talking with others in my area, and SprinklerGuy, plus I believe HBFox does it this way, I like this method better.

we charge $60 to show up. this includes the first hour of tech labor. then we charge $30 for laborer that works with sprinkler tech, materials and any service performed: cleaning valves of debris, setting irrigation timer, adjusting heads...

$30 to show up (svc call), plus $60/man hr with a 1/2 hr min, then 15 min increments. any part of a 1/4 hr (2,3,5 min) is always rounded up.

Parts vary but area bout 2x what I pay for them, some more some less. I'll sell PVB's and some controllers cheaper becaseu I want the people to install them for their benefit and mine, especially the new prospects calling. Example I'll sell a Hunter Pro-C and 2 modules for the same as the list price of a Hunter SRC9.

Bad part about this now is, you have no idea how we arrive at our numbers. For you that is dangerous because you have no idea what your costs of operating are, how to recover them and how much profit to put on top.

Just taking numbers from here with out know what they are made of, puts you at a huge disadvantage competively in your area. You could be too high as well as too low. Both are bad and could result in financial mistakes.

I've had a few people balk at it. But they come around when they realize it will take forever to get someone else.

I actually have 2 prices. Since I acquired another guys client list this winter, my rate for his clients is $52 to show up, $52 an hour. He was at $48 to show, $48 and hour. I don't want to lose a lot of those clients in the first year due to price alone so I am gradually getting them up to normal price. Plus a lot of his clients are little old ladies with old systems and not much $$ so I don't want to shock them into a heart attack right now. I may weed out some of those systems this winter as some are out of my normal work area and some I just don't want to work on again - I get tired of band-aiding bad systems.

HB, You are right. I do not seek out or advertise for any type of irrigation work, but unfortunately down here if you want a lawn you must have an irrigation system. At the beginning of the season I was priming pumps. programming timers and checking the operations of the systems basically complimentary. The sooner they start watering the sooner I get back on schedule. Kept a basic supply of heads in the truck that I would replace for cost when I am there servicing the property. Unfortunately now I seem to be getting calls out of route to fix what ever malady the system has acquired, and wanted to get an idea what the going rate is. Don't think I could charge any where near the amounts above. I also realize that the truck doesn't't run for free and my time to buy and install the parts should be compensated for. I was thinking more in the line of a minimum twenty dollar service charge and a fifty percent mark up on parts if out of route and just the parts mark up if I am there as scheduled up to 15 minutes. After that I would charge 35 an hour. Thanks for all of your insights.

Rhett you have to price it like you are running a business not killing time as a favor. Actions like you are taking is what screws things up for the rest of us that skilled employees whose health insurance cost 7-8K a year, nextel radios at $50+dollars month, full liability abnd WC insurance and pay rates in the serious teens of dollars per hour.

Basically Rhett you ain't making jack at $35/hr job time. When you consider the buying time for materials and the other hours required to answer the phones calls and set up the visits etc., you'd be way ahead getting a job fixing sprinklers for a real irrigation company.

What would happen as business increased and you had to incurr more costs because you had to have an employee do this stuff? Oh, raise your prices then. Fat chance. You already set the tone for the market place and your pricing in particular so that is what people are going to expect to pay. More than that they'll think you are ripping them off. So you wind up shooting your self in the foot along with the industry too.

If you can't figure out what to charge, just copy some big reliable company rates, don't just pull them out of the air and do this a service for free.